Abathur Build Guide “You. Enhanced. Improved.”

The Symbiote Build maximises Abathur's team fight presence by taking Talents that improve Symbiote's damage dealing Abilities. This team fight presence comes at the cost of global pressure, as you will lack the huge lane pressure provided by other builds. Although this is not a build that focuses on pushing lanes, it is still important to soak as much experience as possible. Due to the short range of Symbiote's Abilities, this build is ideally paired with a melee assassin who benefits from increased attack speed.

Adrenal Overload will greatly increase the performance of certain heroes, like Illidan, or Greymane. When the Symbiote host is not reliant on Basic Attacks, you should get Needlespine instead. Even though Calldown: MULE will be useful in most games, Vile Nest is also an option in Dragon Shire and Cursed Hollow, since it will provide much control for enemy rotation and objectives. At Level 16 Adrenaline Boost is the standard Talent, but Envenomed Spikes is a great option against team compositions with limited mobility, since the slow will affect all enemies, greatly disrupting their movement. Together with a Dragonblade Genji or Maiev, you can go for Evolutionary Link at Level 20, since the shield and the extra duration will be incredibly good for those Heroes.

Toxic Nest build can be a good choice in situations where you do not have viable heroes to place Symbiote on. It excels in maps with constant rotation, such as Dragon Shire, Blackheart's Bay, Cursed Hollow, Garden of Terror and Towers of Doom.

Even though it sounds interesting to use all your Toxic Nest in the same point, this is not the best way to abuse this build. We recommend using the Nests between the waves, while making sure they are not very close between them. The main focus is to abuse Vile Nest's slow to delay enemy rotations or to control the way towards the objective. It is also very important to always have a Toxic Nest on enemy's Mercenary camps, since it will give that information to your team, and sometimes it will even stop their intention in capturing it.

In this build there is not much commitment into Symbiote Talents, for this reason we recommend going for Ultimate Evolution, considering it will be strong nonetheless, since it does not depend on any talents, while Evolve Monstrosity does. Envenomed Nest should be changed to Pressurized Glands if opposing team has good access to sustained-healing, since the damage over time will be negated by their healer. At level 13, Soma Transference is the default pick as long as most of your simbiote hosts are frontline Heroes. Therefore, it is better to go for Spatial Efficiency when backliners are the hosts. Evolutionary Link can be a good Talent as well, and you should use the Heroic Ability on your teammate that is having more trouble staying alive, since the 35% shield will be applied to them, giving them some much needed protection.

The Locust Strain Build focuses on talents that produce and enhance Locusts. It excels at creating debilitating static pressure in lanes of your choosing. You can have a significant impact on mid-game team fights via Ultimate Evolution. This build path is mostly not recommended, but sometimes you will feel like that even with your Symbiote on a Hero you will not win the fights. This happens mostly when enemy team composition is a direct counter to yours. Locust build can be an option in that scenario, but we would still recommend going for Symbiote or Toxic Nest build instead. Abathur's power is completely focused on Symbiote, building around Locusts is not the best path. Most of the Heroes can easily defend against it, reducing the viability of this build. Other builds are harder for enemies to deal with, and therefore are much more reliable.

This build has the major Power Spike at level 16, since Locust Brood will enable Abathur to push easily when enemies are not defending. It is crucial to play more aggresive from that point and forward. If all enemies are showing in the map, use Deep Tunnel to an empty lane to spawn 4 locusts and retreat. While an enemy is clearing your Locusts, your team can engage a favourable team fight, but be aware to warn your team by either pinging or even using Ultimate Evolution and advancing.